software

hi. i've recently bought a 35 year old Pearl telecaster copie, and i'm haveing problems with pickups. the seller told me that they are oryginal alnico pickups from the 70's , and i have to say they just might be. as far as tone is concerned they are just great. the only problem is that i play a quite loud stack 50W tube amp and a 280W mesa box. the neck pickup sounds jus great on both clean and distorted channels, but the bridge pickup makes a huge syren like, honky sound when distorted, that is ever present weather you hit the strings, or not. i checked the polarity of the pickups, and they are fine. also when i turn the volume up somewhere around 50% on my guitar, or on the amp the syren starts to screem. nothing below that. one thing that i thought might be the reason for this is the fact that the guitar has some cracks near the back plate where you bolt the body to the neck, and thus the pickup vibrates with the body. i heard that most old teles and strats have those cracks due to string tension. my question is does anyone know of a similar issue, and maybe how to fix this?

Too me it sounds like the pickup has gone microphonic and you should re-pott the pickups. Otherwise if there is a mechanical defect like a loose neck pocket or loose bridge I doubt it would be so apparent. If you want to tighten things up go get some oak dowel that is close to the size of the screw holes and some wood glue. Drill out the holes to fit the dowel and plug the holes. Then re-drill the holes to fit the screws and any looseness or shifting should be cured. I have to do this with necks all the time. Also try sanding the heel of the neck and the neck pocket bare before you bolt it back together. You get much better energy transfer and tone with a sanded heel.

Snowdog

If it's that loud, sounds like there might be a grounding problem with the bridge pickup. I'd check the wiring, and resolder the grounding points, and see if that helps reduce/remove that noise.